


Billy's Club

by fly_sekkiski



Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M, One Shot, Sexual Humor, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 05:43:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6503245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fly_sekkiski/pseuds/fly_sekkiski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Silver gets interested when he hears the men laying bets about the size of Billy’s club.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Billy's Club

**Author's Note:**

> What can I say? This nothing more than shameless, shameless humour from the gutter...

‘Lads!’ Silver ambled over to a table where six of the crew had their heads together and were whispering conspiratorially. ‘What’s up?’

‘We’re talking about Billy’s club,’ Dooley informed him.

‘Are you now.’ Silver's curiosity was piqued. ‘How very interesting.’

‘Yah, sure! We’re taking bets on how long it is,’ another one of the men said.

‘Good lord,’ Silver replied with both eyebrows raised.

‘…And wide – ’ow long and ’ow wide ’ee his,’ Chapin, who was French, added.

‘Fuck me!’ Silver exclaimed quaintly. He sat down. ‘I want in on this action.’

‘Fine,’ Dooley agreed. ‘Since you’re lettered, Silver, you can keep track of the bets.’

Silver rummaged through his pockets until he found a scrap of paper on which he’d been making an inventory of food stores. Conveniently, De Groot had left a quill and ink on the table after course-plotting that morning. Silver pulled it over and looked around the group invitingly.

‘Seven inches,’ Pratt, the young gunner, blurted to a chorus of groans from the men. ‘And two wide.’

Silver nodded and made the appropriate note. He put down his own name next and after a moment’s thought, scrawled two numbers that gave him satisfaction.

‘Ten,’ called Winsloe, who was nervy and from Bristol, ‘No, better make it twelve. I’m going with two wide too.’

‘Twelve and two,’ Silver repeated, scrawling the numbers next to Winsloe’s name.

‘I ’eard that ’ee ’as fourteen inches,’ Chapin offered. He leaned over the table to make sure that Silver was writing down the right information.

‘So I will say sixteen,’ Bogardus, a Dutch pilot they’d recently picked up, chipped in, ‘and four wide.’

Silver looked up from the piece of paper on which he’d been scribbling. ‘Um…’ he began. But Dooley was eyeing the pilot shrewdly. ‘Sixteen was going to be _my_ guess, Dutchy,’ he growled. Bogardus shrugged carelessly and intoned, ‘The early bird catch the worm’. Dooley frowned at that for a second but then said to Silver, ‘Fine, make mine same as his but a half-inch less – no, _more_ – in both directions.’

Silver suppressed a snort and added two more names and pairs of numbers to his list. 

‘Sure,’ Dawes scoffed. ‘You’re all fools! It’s two feet if it’s an inch and fourteen around the head.’ He punched Silver in the shoulder playfully. ‘You write that down Silver, y’hear, two feet long and fourteen around!’

Silver started to make a note but then raised his head. ‘Are you certain you want that to be your bet, Dawes?’ he asked. ‘Because I’m not sure that’s technically poss—’  

‘Don’t forget about the ring!’ Winsloe blurted suddenly.

Silver made a strangled noise. ‘The … _ring_? _’_ he choked out.

‘Yeah.’ Winsloe elaborated: ‘At the base. Gives ’im better control.’

Dawes’ extravagant claims were instantly forgotten. Silver put his right hand to his forehead. He applied his thumb to one temple and his middle finger to the other and squeezed hard. ‘Control,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Right…’

‘What’s a matter, Silver?’ Dooley asked. He craned to see the piece of paper on which the bets were recorded. ‘You getting this proper, now? No mistakes, right? We all got a lot of ale riding on this.’

Silver recovered himself. ‘Yes, yes, seems correct.’ He read though the various guesses. ‘No, wait. Chapin, you haven’t given a diameter yet.’

‘What’s a dee-ah-meeter?’

‘Width across,’ Silver explained briskly. ‘You too, Dawes: I need a diameter, not a circumference.’

At that moment, Flint strode by. He paid the small group of men no attention whatsoever but continued rapidly on his way up to the quarterdeck. Pratt watched Flint pass and then said, wistfully, ‘Bet you the captain knows.’

‘Ha!’ snorted Dawes. ‘Knows! The captain’s _seen_ it. I had that for a fact.’

‘I would imagine,’ Silver remarked thoughtfully, ‘that Captain Flint prefers to keep Billy’s club exclusively for his own use.’

The rest of the men appeared exceedingly disappointed at this. ‘Well, if that’s the case,’ one of them asked, ‘then how are we going to confirm how big it is?’

‘Perhaps,’ Silver suggested tentatively, ‘we could simply go and ask Billy himself.’ He was having a slightly difficult time imagining the conversation, but the rest of the men seemed to think that what he’d proposed was a perfectly fine solution. There was one final checking of the various guesses and then, without further ado, they all trooped down to the berth deck in search of Billy.

They found the _Walrus_ ’ first mate sitting on a crate near his hammock rubbing down the barrel of his pistol with a soft cloth.

‘Billy!’ Silver called out. The young man raised his head inquiringly. ‘Can we have a quick word?’

Billy glanced around at the eager faces of the seven men in front of him. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

Silver hesitated. Someone prodded him in hard the back – once, twice, and then a third time with even more insistence. Silver growled over his shoulder for whoever it was to knock it off. ‘The thing is,’ he began, turning back to face Billy, ‘the men and I … we … have a bet going on how long your …  um … ‘club’ is.’

John Silver had seldom in life found himself faced with a situation that caused him to colour, but this one was definitely making the back of his neck prickle and turn red. ‘So could you … you know … tell us what its dimensions are…’ Silver’s voice was beginning to fail him. He cleared his throat. ‘Specifically, the length and width of its … shaft.’

‘Easier if I just show you, isn’t it?’ Billy replied, standing up.

Silver swallowed. The rest of the men cried out eager shouts of ‘Haul ’im out, Billy!’ and ‘Show us the goods!’

Billy shrugged. He turned around and bent over. Silver moistened his lips.

Billy pulled a box out from underneath his hammock from which he produced a wooden truncheon of about twenty inches in length. Its shaft tapered from nearly eight inches in circumference at the striking end to a much narrower base, where a silver ring was fixed in order to attach the baton to a belt if needed. He handed it to Silver. ‘Here,’ he said with a smile. ‘My club. Feel free to do with it what you want.’

Silver stared at it the wooden weapon for a very long moment. Then, eyes narrowed, he looked slowly up at Billy. ‘This,’ Silver said slowly, ‘is a … _billy club_.’

‘Well, yeah,’ Billy agreed, a little confused at Silver’s expression. ‘I nicked it off a constable when I was a lad.’

The rest of the men were crowding around eagerly. ‘Come on, Silver,’ Dawes urged him. ‘You’re the one with the record of everyone’s guesses – measure ’im up and tell us who’s won!’

‘You know,’ Silver replied, ‘all of a sudden I’m feeling strangely uninterested in the matter.’ He handed Pratt the truncheon. ‘Measure it yourselves,’ he said curtly and disappeared towards the hatchway.

Billy watched him go. ‘What’s with him?’ he asked.

No one made any answer. Billy glanced back at the men. Dooley was estimating the dimensions of the club with his thumb and the rest were all too interested in the outcome to pay any attention to Billy’s question. 

I think,’ Billy said to no one in particular, ‘that I should go check on Silver – make sure he feels all right.’ He turned to leave.

Dawes, with his two-feet-and-fourteen seeming like the best guess, had already claimed victory. ‘That’s some hard wood there,’ he said, admiring the truncheon and knocking it with his knuckles. ‘Must be made of oak.’

‘Bah!’ retorted Dooley, who was grumpy that he’d lost. ‘Any fool can see it’s ash.’

‘Hey Billy,’ Pratt called, ‘you know what this thing is made of?’

‘It’s either redwood or birch,’ Billy replied with a shrug. ‘I haven’t quite figured it out which yet.’ He left to see where Silver had got to.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Anachronistic as all get out but I couldn't resist.


End file.
